Student body found in pool

Burdwan, Sept. 3: A Burdwan University student’s body was today found floating in a swimming pool in the district town.

Police said Ramen Samanta, a final-year English student of Vivekananda College in Burdwan, was last seen going towards the swimming club, run by the Children’s Cultural Centre, last evening.

Around 10pm yesterday, Ramen’s mother got a call from his cellphone, a police officer said. The caller, he added, asked her to come to the swimming club in Alamganj “immediately” as her son’s condition was “serious”.

The boy’s mother Bandana said she overheard another person dictating to the caller to tell her that her son was driving. Smelling something fishy, she handed over the phone to her husband Debkumar, but the call was disconnected by then.

“We informed the police and went to the swimming club with two of our neighbours. We found people gathered outside the swimming club,” Bandana said.

Inside the club, they found a body floating face down. The police brought out Ramen’s body, which had marks of scratches on his ears, nose and shoulder. “There were blood on his elbows,” the officer said.

“My son was around 6ft tall and the pool 4ft deep. How could he drown in that water. He must have been murdered and then thrown into the pool,” Debkumar alleged.

He questioned why the caretaker of the swimming club, Gopi Roy, was missing when a body was found in the club’s pool. Gopi was not found even at his home.

“When we questioned Gopi’s wife Padma, she told us that she knew nothing about the body,” the officer said.

The secretary of the children’s cultural centre, Keshto Ghosh, was not available for comment. His mobile phone was switched off since morning.

District superintendent of police S. M. H. Meerza said an investigation had been started following a complaint by the father at Burdwan police station.

“We have started a murder case on the basis of a complaint lodged by DebKumar Samanta. We are examining all possibilities. If required, we will talk to Ramen’s friends and the caretaker of the pool and also try to locate those who had used Ramen’s cellphone to call his parents,” the district police chief said.